Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Noodle Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the noodles
Beat the egg with a pinch of salt.
Mix in flour until stiff, then knead and roll very thin.
Sift a little flour over the sheet and roll it into a tight scroll.
Cut the roll into slices no thicker than ⅛ inch.
Shake out the noodles and leave them on a floured board.
Cook and serve
Heat the stock in a pot and season to taste.
When boiling, drop in the noodles and boil for 5 minutes.
Serve hot.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds richness and structure to the noodles.
- Flour
- Forms the dough's structure, which holds the noodles together as they cook.
- Stock
- Provides the main liquid and savory flavor of the soup.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough very thin. Thin sheets cook through quickly and stay tender; thick dough stays dense and chewy in the middle. Dust lightly with flour so the sheet does not stick while rolling.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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